This is a full theatrical trailer for Bullet Boy (2004). The trailer opens with the logo of their distributor "Verve" then immediately has a series of shots of police smashing down the door to a flat and raiding the household - straight from the off the trailer shows that crime is involved. It then cuts to a long shot of a tower block with the words "There are thousands of guns on our streets", explaining the specific crime (gun) that the film is focusing on while also involving the audience with the use of the word "our", saying they should care because it is their street. The next shot is of a police officer pointing a gun (the first time we see one and it is in the hands of an authority figure) at a child and ordering him to turn around, then another shot of a motionless man being held down and questioned. There's then another text shot with "This is the story of one" over the top of a black and white close-up of someone rubbing down a gun with a sock - this text personifies the gun, making it a character in itself, as usually the story would be of a human instead of an inanimate object. The beginning of the trailer effectively ends at this point, 20 seconds in, and the middle begins; the setting has been set - the story revolves around gun crime in a city and the consequences of one of these weapons.
A montage of various different shots forms the next stage. There's long shots of fields, views of the city from the protagonist's home tower block, him in dark alleyways and interactions with his friends and family. There's some lines of dialogue introducing the main human character and telling the audience that he's been to jail, by claiming it's "embarrassing" to be picked up from jail by his mother, and the problems he faces upon his release, "you might find it hard to gain employment with a criminal record". These are interspersed with positive but simple one word quotes from critics, such as "Mesmerising - The Observer" and "Striking - The Times", and mentions of awards and selections from well-respected film festivals.
At around the 35 second mark, the gun is re-introduced and the images on screen become increasingly orientated towards it: there's shots of hold-ups with a gun and cleaning of it. The need of the protagonist to escape from the city is also made clear, "I stay here, people are just going to drag me back in", as well as the reasons for not wanting to leave, "you saved my life man, and now you're telling me to turn my back on you".
For the climax of the trailer, the shots are cut very close together and the images are suitably hectic: he's being lectured by his step father, he's nervously hiding being a wall, his friend is pointing his gun and his little brother is spinning around with the gun in his hands. The final text is split into three parts: "You only get", "one shot"(the choice of shot a reference to the gun that everything revolves around) then "at life" with more bleak and innocuous footage than what had just preceded it interspersed with some more gun imagery; there's his brother riding his bike, a close-up of the protagonist, him wondering through a market, a long shot of a field with telephone wires mixed with a shot of him in a dark alleyway holding the gun and his brother holding the gun in a forest environment.
The trailer then ends with the title picture: a black-and-white image of his younger brother with "Bullet Boy" written across it, the choice of his younger brother seems odd considering the film is about the older sibling and it could be intended to intrigue the audience; who is the "Bullet Boy?" The older brother or the younger one. Followed by a very brief shot of two children running through a field and the text about Massive Attack's Robert Del Naja supplying music, tempting the audience to see the film if not for the film then for the music by the famous musician.
The music is very important to the trailer as it sets the mood and is the reference point for the editing. It's suitably calm and bleak with the simple repeated notes and soothing singing and it gets gradually quicker as the trailer goes on with new parts being added when the trailer reaches its climax, thudding sound effects matching cuts and a quick beat behind the notes. The editing of the trailer is done to match a certain note of the repeating track, meaning that as the tempo of the song quickens the shorter each shot is.
A montage of various different shots forms the next stage. There's long shots of fields, views of the city from the protagonist's home tower block, him in dark alleyways and interactions with his friends and family. There's some lines of dialogue introducing the main human character and telling the audience that he's been to jail, by claiming it's "embarrassing" to be picked up from jail by his mother, and the problems he faces upon his release, "you might find it hard to gain employment with a criminal record". These are interspersed with positive but simple one word quotes from critics, such as "Mesmerising - The Observer" and "Striking - The Times", and mentions of awards and selections from well-respected film festivals.
At around the 35 second mark, the gun is re-introduced and the images on screen become increasingly orientated towards it: there's shots of hold-ups with a gun and cleaning of it. The need of the protagonist to escape from the city is also made clear, "I stay here, people are just going to drag me back in", as well as the reasons for not wanting to leave, "you saved my life man, and now you're telling me to turn my back on you".
For the climax of the trailer, the shots are cut very close together and the images are suitably hectic: he's being lectured by his step father, he's nervously hiding being a wall, his friend is pointing his gun and his little brother is spinning around with the gun in his hands. The final text is split into three parts: "You only get", "one shot"(the choice of shot a reference to the gun that everything revolves around) then "at life" with more bleak and innocuous footage than what had just preceded it interspersed with some more gun imagery; there's his brother riding his bike, a close-up of the protagonist, him wondering through a market, a long shot of a field with telephone wires mixed with a shot of him in a dark alleyway holding the gun and his brother holding the gun in a forest environment.
The trailer then ends with the title picture: a black-and-white image of his younger brother with "Bullet Boy" written across it, the choice of his younger brother seems odd considering the film is about the older sibling and it could be intended to intrigue the audience; who is the "Bullet Boy?" The older brother or the younger one. Followed by a very brief shot of two children running through a field and the text about Massive Attack's Robert Del Naja supplying music, tempting the audience to see the film if not for the film then for the music by the famous musician.
The music is very important to the trailer as it sets the mood and is the reference point for the editing. It's suitably calm and bleak with the simple repeated notes and soothing singing and it gets gradually quicker as the trailer goes on with new parts being added when the trailer reaches its climax, thudding sound effects matching cuts and a quick beat behind the notes. The editing of the trailer is done to match a certain note of the repeating track, meaning that as the tempo of the song quickens the shorter each shot is.
The start of the trailer is some extremely brief (five are shown in little over a second) shots of several of the main characters accompanied by the sound of a record being scratched. The introduction of the song then starts and there's a long shot of a cityscape, some slow motion shots of someone walking before the song kicks in, met by screams and hooded character swinging a baseball bat at the camera.
There's a shot of the rapper performing the song followed by a montage of drugs and drink, a handful of shots implying violent crime (the throwing of a bottle, a gun gesture, a threatening shop owner with a bat shouting "I'll have you arrested!" and the unfurling of a blanket to reveal a gun) and some stereotypical factors of teenage life like parties, public transport and money.
36 seconds in, the first dialogue is spoken containing a large amount of explicit and colloquial language, displaying the problems of the characters - the main character's girlfriend has supposedly been cheating on him with the antagonist, the girlfriend is now pregnant, and the protagonist is now unsure what to do.
There's part of the trailer that shows one of the characters having sex with someone, only for the music to stop abruptly and for him to apologise profusely and his friend laughing, offering some of the humour from the film.
There's also a part that show the three friends attacking the antagonist and the antagonist swearing and taking his revenge. The film then ends with the split up words "Before adulthood" "comes" then a series of quickly cut shots of a swinging baseball bat and someone aiming a gun before the film's title "Kidulthood" appears on screen, then the protagonist saying "bye Mum" and closing the door behind him, with the flash of the release date ending the trailer.
The trailer doesn't really follow the structural conventions of film trailers. The aforementioned problems and events are present, however the start of the trailer doesn't really introduce the characters, only their issues rather than their background story, or setting but showcases the themes of the film instead. Nor does the trailer really build up to a climax - the fast paced music suits the feel of the trailer but it means the shots are all edited very short, making it intense throughout rather than just at the end.
36 seconds in, the first dialogue is spoken containing a large amount of explicit and colloquial language, displaying the problems of the characters - the main character's girlfriend has supposedly been cheating on him with the antagonist, the girlfriend is now pregnant, and the protagonist is now unsure what to do.
There's part of the trailer that shows one of the characters having sex with someone, only for the music to stop abruptly and for him to apologise profusely and his friend laughing, offering some of the humour from the film.
There's also a part that show the three friends attacking the antagonist and the antagonist swearing and taking his revenge. The film then ends with the split up words "Before adulthood" "comes" then a series of quickly cut shots of a swinging baseball bat and someone aiming a gun before the film's title "Kidulthood" appears on screen, then the protagonist saying "bye Mum" and closing the door behind him, with the flash of the release date ending the trailer.
The trailer doesn't really follow the structural conventions of film trailers. The aforementioned problems and events are present, however the start of the trailer doesn't really introduce the characters, only their issues rather than their background story, or setting but showcases the themes of the film instead. Nor does the trailer really build up to a climax - the fast paced music suits the feel of the trailer but it means the shots are all edited very short, making it intense throughout rather than just at the end.
The trailer opens to a character talking straight to the camera about how he's "having the best time being off his pickle", showing the drug culture of the film, with a muffled bassline in the background getting increasingly louder and clearer before the image cuts to a scene from a club - showing the type of places the film centres around.
Each character engages directly with the audience by looking straight at the camera and introduce themselves and their problems very simply. For example, one says he has "a monumental case of Mr Floppy" and another has problems trusting his girlfriend. This shows the problems the film will deal with, and gives a handful of ways that the characters deal with them, such as the Shaun Parkes' character confronting his girlfriend.
Its primary concern seems to be trying to prove it's funny though and so the majority of the trailer is taken up with a montage of quirky behaviour. Each shot appears to be roughly the same amount of time in line with the constant energetic repeating music.
The trailer appears to building up to the title screen, which seems like a clever idea, making the audience want to know the title, thus ensuring they will remember it. It builds up by getting progressively stranger: from funny dancing to robot human popcorn-makers. It then ends on the "Human Traffic" title, with "The weekend is landing..." dropping down - the tagline appealing to the kind of young club scene it appears to aiming itself at.
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